black bears

[treadlightly]

I caught the last half of a programme about black bears in Minnesota last night and thought it was superb with amazing footage especially scenes when the cameraman engaged with a female and her cub the like of which I've never seen before.

Episode two is on tonight - well worth watching

 

[Mesquite]

What channel and time?

 

[treadlightly]

What channel and time?

The Bear Family and Me. BBC2 9-10pm

 

[John Fenna]

A fantastic program!
I will miss tonights episode but will catch up on iplayer....

 

[tommy the cat]

Great programme I really enjoy gordons filming/ presenting.
I must admit when he got bit I was squirming and couldn't watch as I felt it was gonna go bad!
Look forward to the rest.
Dave

 

[locum76]

It remains to be seen if the intervention will be successful or not.

 

[treadlightly]

It remains to be seen if the intervention will be successful or not.

Could you elaborate please?

 

[locum76]

At the end of the programme there was a hint that the mother bear wasn't going to be able to feed the cub enough due to the long break before the researcher reintroduced the two. Hence the cub would be likely to starve. The mother's lactation and milk let down having been depleted due to the absence.

This gives the team the option of letting nature take it's course again (cub starves and it's agony prolonged by the intervention) or adopting the cub (cub lives but mother suffers prolonged stress as a result).

It may have been better to leave the cub to it's devices 9less stress all round) or with luck the team may be able to help the mother feed the cub and all will be nice and lovely.

I very much adhere to the principal of letting nature take it's course in such events, my wife takes the opposite view.

 

[treadlightly]

No easy answer. I can only say I was hoping the guy would intervene when he was considering his options, but, you're right, it may prove to be the wrong decision.

The programme suggested the mother left her cub to mate again. I guess that was either because she is a young inexperienced mother or she sensed the cub would not survive and that she should produce one that might be stronger.

 

[tommy the cat]

I can see both arguments but I would have intervened. One. could argue the contact itself with the bears (collar etc) is inappropriate.... What great telly and what a setting!
D

 

[UKdave]

If you want to REALLY see what living with Black bears is all about track down "the Bear man" or his name Charlie vandagaw he also had a British camera man come along for 6 months and was bitten on the foot by a sow bear when he came in ffront of her and her cub.

The place in Minnisota is called "Bear haven" I think. Ive seen and got lots of books on the subject of Black bears, a small point of interest is that more people are attacked by Black bears than they are by Brown/Grizz bears. If a Black bear attacks and its not defending cubs, then it see`s you as a food source!!

 

[Growing Lad]

Prof Lynn Rogers is a great source of info on blackbears, his website is a great resource for studies into several species other than bear. Well worth a look:

http://www.bearstudy.org/website/

Cheers

 

[bojit]

Thanks for the link, what a great site .

the den cam is great .

I have seen a few black bears in Canada but never wanted to get close, still think i will keep a good distance!

Craig....................

 

[stovie]

Took this, and many others when in Canada a couple of years ago. All you need to do is visit the local tip, and there before your eyes are literally dozens of bears and cubs. They are incredibly fertile, with just about all females giving birth to twins or triplets, due to the ease of scavanging. There is also an issue around the shooting ban placed a few years back, which has resulted in a population explosion, with the usual implications around infiltration into urban society, and little fear of man due to the regular contact at places such as the refuse tip...On the day we were there I counted over twenty five bears of varying ages...some of the pics I got were amazing...this is the only one on PB at the moment

 

[fred gordon]

Loving this programme about Black Bears. I think Gordon Buchanan is one of the finest Wildlife photographers we have in the UK. In the first programme there were shots of Gordon with a camcorder and what looked like a small bit of fur over the microphone. Does anyone know what this was for? Was it to keep out unwanted sound for example?

 

[gsfgaz]

That was an amazing programme , I'm glad that hope and Lilly got reacquainted ... excellent

 

[bikething]

In the first programme there were shots of Gordon with a camcorder and what looked like a small bit of fur over the microphone. Does anyone know what this was for? Was it to keep out unwanted sound for example?

If it looks like a furry sock then it's to reduce wind noise on the captured sound

Not seen the program yet - just downloading the first episode on IPlayer... 4hours 22 minutes to go...

 

[bojit]

Hi Fred, yes they are sound mufflers for wind and other background noise.

the Lilly and Hope den webcam is great,and i think that they got the sound working today.

Some other news about Lilly , they think that she might be pregnant and expecting at the end of January .

Craig.................

 

[JonathanD]

If it looks like a furry sock then it's to reduce wind noise on the captured sound

Not seen the program yet - just downloading the first episode on IPlayer... 4hours 22 minutes to go...

Quite right. Gordon employs the same technique with his hair in an attempt to filter out Kate Humble when he is doing Spring/Autumnwatch.

 

[dj77]

That has been an amazing series and quite poignant when the hunter fed the bear by hand.
I was a bit concerned about them getting so close and feeding the bears - I looked after some red tail hawks at one time and had to feed them day old chicks through a little hatch so as not to imprint them and keep them natural.